GENEVA (Reuters) - A World Trade Organisation (WTO)
mediator issued new proposals on Monday for opening up services
such as telecoms and banking as part of a global trade deal.

But the new text, replacing a previous document isued in
February, did not set dates for revised offers or final
commitments in the services negotiations.

The document, by Mexico's WTO ambassador, Fernando de Mateo
y Venturini, who chairs the services talks, showed big
differences remain between developed and developing countries
on how to proceed.

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"Members shared the view that substantial efforts were
needed to reach a successful conclusion of the negotiations,"
Mateo said in his report, summarizing progress in the services
talks in the WTO's Doha round over the past few months.

Reflecting the difficulties in reaching agreement, Mateo
entitled his document a report with a draft annex, rather than
a formal negotiating text, as three WTO members -- Bolivia,
Cuba and Venezuela -- argue that no formal services text is
needed.

Together with revised texts for Doha's core chapters of
agriculture and industrial goods, the new document serves as a
blueprint for a possible meeting of ministers to reach an
outline deal in the round, now in its seventh year.

Besides talks on agriculture and industry, ministers would
also hold a "signaling conference" to indicate their intentions
in services. That would allow, for example, a country that
agrees to a big cut in farm tariffs to take comfort from a
probable market opening in telecoms elsewhere.

FRAMEWORK FOR AGREEMENT

Services account for 70 percent or more of most developed
economies and 50 percent or more of many developing ones. But
they make up only 19 percent of world trade.

Business organizations representing services are keen to
prevent long-running rows on opening up agriculture and
industrial goods from hampering ambitious plans to lower
barriers to services.

While negotiations in farming and manufactured goods focus
on cutting tariffs and subsidies, talks in services are about
changing domestic regulations to let in foreign competitors.

Mateo's latest report -- to be reviewed by WTO members on
June 2 -- does not list specific proposals for opening
different sectors, but instead lays out the framework for an
agreement.

However, there is still disagreement on some fundamentals.

Developed countries want the opening in services -- the
sector of most interest to some rich countries -- to be at
least as ambitious as those in agriculture and industrial
goods.

They want developing countries to lock in current levels of
market opening and agree to further liberalization.

Developing countries do not accept that, and say that any
further opening in services must be in areas of interest to
them -- including liberalization of the movement of temporary
workers, a core demand.

Only about 30 countries are taking part actively in the
services talks, both in bilateral pairs and bigger groups, but
any liberalization they agree is open to all 152 WTO members.

The United States, European Union and other rich countries
are calling on major developing nations such as Brazil, China
and India to open up banking and other professional services.

In return, developing countries want rich nations to let in
more temporary workers in areas from construction and health --
a demand that has run up against national security concerns and
anti-immigration sentiment in developed states.